Can you hear me now?

­­Think about it; do you have any friends who purposefully live life without the aid of a cell phone?  You're probably thinking of that one existentialist guy who hates the government and refuses to "conform", but besides him, can you think of any cell-phone-less friend who doesn't make a big deal about it, but chooses not to spend their money on a blackberry (or any other type of cell phone)? People are expected to have cell phones nowadays, period.  If you don't, you're in between phones, and hating life until you renew your contract.  With this new requirement comes an inescapable slavery to technology, with everyone you know constantly capable of reaching you, if they so please.

There are, of course, absolute benefits to the development of cell phone technology.  Days are no longer ruined over a flat tire.  You can meet anyone anywhere, with little difficulty.  You can call a friend and be instantly reminded of that song lyric you've temporarily forgotten.  You can even Google it, Shazam it; whatever application you prefer.

But we get so caught up in the awesomeness of smart phones as they keep getting smarter, it's easy to forget the potential downsides of gluing your cheek to your iPhone.

As a society, we are completely debilitating our social skills by spending too much time talking to each other through a medium, instead of face-to-face.  If you find yourself shying away from real-life conversations to hide behind your phone screen, or having a full-blown text-conversation with someone while in the physical company of someone else, check yourself.

You're never going to have to stop interacting with people in person, so don't let yourself get uncomfortable with it just because we are part of such a technological generation.  At the very least, be aware of your cop outs and conversational hesitations.  Only then can you begin to correct them.

Remember back in your "play-date" days when you had your three best friends' numbers memorized?  You were only seven, but you could remember series of numbers pretty easily.  Did you ever consider memorizing phone numbers as a beneficial subconscious exercise for your memory?  Maybe you wouldn't have to repeat an address 972 times in your head to remember it if you had spent your life memorizing numbers instead of entering them once into your phone and never seeing them again.

Attention spans seem to be rapidly decreasing.  We are a part of the Adderall generation as much as we are a part of the technology generation; may I suggest the two are related?

Today information is presented and stored so rapidly, we barely have a chance to absorb anything anymore, and it may very well be taking its toll.  Maybe we are increasing the number of people diagnosed with ADD because of the speed at which information is transmitted and how constantly we are bombarded with media.  With your nose in your phone, and the constant checking of your Facebook, you're overwhelming your senses.

So get off the meds and read a book.  Trust that your maybe-boyfriend doesn't need another update of how boring work might be and let him get to know you in person.  At the very least, give yourself the chance to be interesting and articulate.